


bullets

by TChallaGotBac



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: i dont even know what to put in the tags, i wrote this instead of sleeping oop, idk what im doing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27110758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TChallaGotBac/pseuds/TChallaGotBac
Summary: May knows Peter is hiding something. Peter knows May knows Peter is hiding something. May guesses horribly wrong. Then Peter does something dumb and he gets hurt. May finds out what he's actually hiding the hard way. (Slight trigger warning- someone does get shot and there's mention of blood, however it's not extremely graphic.)
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	1. star light, star bright...

**Author's Note:**

> who knows if anyone will actually read this fic. I just had an idea and basically threw it up on the page. There will be more chapters (probably) so if you want to know what happens subscribe to me or the work lol.  
> P. S. this is a world where tony didn’t take peter to germany, and the events of homecoming are basically the same except without tony. He will probably come in later. also peter made his own cool suit without tony because i strongly dislike the homemade suit and i wanted him to look better but i need to delay tony's entrance.

“Peter? Are you okay in there?” May bit her lip and knocked gently on her nephew’s door. The weird noises she’d been hearing stopped in a panicked sort of silence.

She waited a beat before slowly turning the knob and pushing open the door, when a voice that wasn’t Peter’s yelled “NO!” and something slammed against the door. It was lucky she wasn’t wearing the high heels she’d had on ten minutes ago; the force of the door coming back at her sent her stumbling back. As good as she was in them, her butt would’ve met the floor, and she hadn’t mopped in a week. Nevertheless, she stood a few paces away from the door in shock until she found her words again.

“What in the world is going on, Peter? Is that Ned in there with you?”

“Sorry, Ms Parker! We’re, ah, watching porn?

There was a _smack_ sound and some furious whispering before Peter’s face appeared in a crack in the doorway. Sweat dripped down his beet-red face, and the way his shirt caught on his hip said that it had been put on hastily, just then. She knew him well enough to know that his nervous grin meant he was about to lie to her- something he’d seemed to be doing a lot of lately.

“Um, sorry, May, we were _not_ watching porn-” he shot an angry glance at Ned- “but we were watching an R-rated movie, and I know you don’t really like me watching those if you haven’t seen it yet because you think I don’t know what sex is or something so I just kind of panicked and that’s why I rammed the door into you- um, but yeah. That’s all we were watching. Not porn,” he added, with another glance at Ned. May peeked around the door to see Ned, shrugging, with the guiltiest look on his face May had ever seen.

Yeah. Complete lie.

But as she looked between the two boy’s guilty faces, something began to dawn on her- why hadn’t she seen it sooner? 

So instead of calling them out on their lie, she just nodded and backed away, as if buying it. “Oh. Okay. If that’s all.” Peter looked at Ned in an obvious moment of _Dude! I can’t believe she bought it!_

“Well, I’m pretty wiped from my date, so I’m just gonna-” she clicked her tongue and pointed her thumb over her shoulder- “head to bed! Ned, you have a ride home?”

Peter started to say something but was cut off by Ned. “Actually, I’m staying the night.”

May just looked at each of the boy’s faces, unsure what to say. Peter buried his head in his hands. Ned stared at Peter in mild confusion before continuing-- 

“Oh, well I mean, my parents are out of town, but I didn’t want to be alone, so Peter said I could stay with him tonight. So I wasn’t alone.” 

“I see…” May said, still backing up. 

There was a pregnant pause that stretched until Peter said “’Night, May,” and she quickly repeated the phrase back to him and backed into her room quickly. Once inside, she quietly banged her head against the hollow door as if trying to erase the night from her memory. 

“Well, that was awkward.” 

After ensuring that May was safely in her room and out of earshot, Peter turned angrily to face his best friend. 

“We’re watching _porn_?! Is that your excuse for everything?!” 

Ned threw his arms in the air. “What was I supposed to say? ‘Sorry, Ms Parker, you can’t come in right now, I’m just sewing up your nephew after someone knifed him in the back!’”

“I don’t know, Ned!” Peter practically yelled. He put his hands on his head and started to pace, ignoring the stinging pain in his back. He could feel his heart rate speeding up as he began to breath faster. Ned looked at him with concern.

“Dude, what’s the big deal? You fixed it with your story, anyway.”

“The big deal?” Peter hissed, halting his pacing to jam a finger in Ned’s face. “The _big deal_ is that she knows I’ve been hiding something, and now she thinks she’s figured out what! The _big deal_ is that she didn’t believe my story, Ned! So now she thinks we were watching porn together, which is bad enough, but then you had to make it worse by saying that we are SLEEPING TOGETHER!!”

The color slowly drained from Ned’s face as he reached the same realization minutes after Peter had. “So your aunt thinks we’re… she thinks we’re…” 

“Oh yeah, Ned! She does!”

Ned shook his head quickly. “No, no, no, no. She wouldn’t think that, right? I mean, it makes no sense, right?”

“C’mon, Catherine, it makes total sense!” May pulled her container of potato salad out of the fridge and dug straight in with a spoon. Catherine snagged a bite with her fork before putting her rice in the microwave and shrugged.

“I guess… but that’s a pretty big thing to assume about someone.”

“I’m not assuming! It all makes sense now!” May insisted. “First, the random disappearances, as well as his secrecy and lies about where he was going. Second, the extended amount of time he’s been spending at Ned’s. Third, the phone calls he’ll be on with Ned in his room, whispering, and as soon as I walk in, he suddenly stops talking. And fourth… whatever happened last night.”

“May.” Catherine turned to her with a disbelieving look on her face, stirring barbeque sauce into her rice.

“Ew,” May scrunched up her nose at her friend’s lunch.

“What? Oh, you’ve never tried it. It’s good.”

Now it was May’s turn for a disbelieving look.

“Whatever. Anyway, you’re jumping to conclusions. Even if Peter was… you know, it still wouldn't explain everything. Didn’t you tell me the other day that he’d quit the band? And he comes home with random bumps and bruises, always with the worst excuses?”

“He did tell me once that he broke his nose running into a lamppost…” May conceded, sliding a potato off her spoon slowly. “So, what? You think he’s in a secret underground fight club or something?”

“No, just that there’s probably another explanation for all this other than he’s _with_ his best friend. And the only way to find out is to talk to him.”

May groaned and leaned up against the fridge. “Raising a teenager is hard,” she whined.

“Oh, honey, don’t even tell me about it. I raised three.”

When Peter heard May come home from work, he knew she would want to talk to him about… things, and he didn’t really want to explain the fresh new bruise on his cheek, so he did the sensible thing. He climbed out his window and sat on the roof of their apartment building, doing his homework.

After a few minutes (enough for May to search the apartment and find him missing) his phone dinged:

_may: Where are you?_

_peter: studying_

_peter: with friends_

_peter: mj and andrew_

_peter: we’re in a group project together_

_peter: you dont know andrew_

_peter: hes in my bio class_

_may: Ok_

Peter groaned. _Overcompensating much, Peter?_ It seemed like things would never be not awkward with May after everything the night before.

A sigh escaped him after he realized he had gotten exactly half a math problem done in the last hour. No- not even half a problem. He’d used the wrong formula.

Giving up, he laid down and stared at the darkening sky. Stars were beginning to emerge, making him think of something Ben taught him when he was small, just after his parents died.

_“Time for sleep, bud. Hop up on your bed before May comes home and sees you awake an hour past your bedtime.” Ben lifted the little boy on his bed, and he immediately bounded over to the window._

_“Look, Ben! The first star!” Peter’s pudgy finger pointed at the blinking light, smudging the glass with his tiny fingerprint._

_“Quick, Pete! Make a wish!” Ben scooted up by the window and pulled Peter on his lap. His nephew looked up at him, his almost nonexistent eyebrows furrowed._

_“A wish?”_

_“You’ve never wished on a star before?”_

_“No…” Peter said with a small shake of his head._

_“It’s easy. Just repeat after me. Are you ready?”_

And Peter found himself, fourteen years later, remembering what Ben had taught him that night. He could almost feel his warm smile shining down on him, the smile that made him feel like nothing could ever hurt him. Peter longed to feel his uncle’s arms wrapped around him again, feel his rough hands wipe away his tears one more time.

He had never told anyone, but he could hardly remember his dad’s face. People showed him pictures of a man that looked exactly like him and said it was his father, but when he tried to reach into the depths of his memory, all he could see was Ben. Ben’s smile, Ben’s laugh, Ben’s embrace, Ben’s comfort. His voice echoed in Peter’s head now, and he repeated the words he’d said when Ben had held him in his arms, a lifetime ago.

_“Star light, star bright…”_

“Star light, star bright…”

_“I wish I may, I wish I might…”_

“I wish I may, I wish I might…”

_“Wish the wish I wish tonight.”_

“Wish the wish I wish tonight.”

_“Now you wish for anything you want.”_

_“Anything?”_

_“Anything. But silently. Don’t tell anyone what you wished for.”_

“I wish…” Peter whispered. He squeezed his eyes shut and wished harder than he’d wished for anything. 

He knew it was impossible, his wish.

But it didn’t stop him from making it.

_“I love you, Uncle Ben.”_

_“Love you, too, kiddo.”_

“I miss you, Uncle Ben.”

This time, there was no response.

An hour later, he was jerked awake by… something. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep. Groggily he checked his phone and found several missed texts from May, all in the last ten minutes. 

“Oops,” he said, reassuring May that he was not dead in the gutter, and that he’d be home in twenty minutes. Just enough time to finish that episode of Psych.

Then he realized what he’d been woken up by.

There was something happening. Something bad. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but this happened sometimes. It was almost like a sixth sense for danger. It was unreliable and didn’t always show up to save him, but occasionally he’d get this feeling like… he _needed_ to go somewhere. And almost always, it led him to someone in danger. One time, it had turned out that he was just hungry and it had guided him to his favorite hot dog stand.

But this time, someone needed help. He could tell.

He just needed his suit. It should be in his room, he just needed to get back in through the window. But once he crawled (carefully) down the wall, a quick peek inside revealed May at his computer in his room. This wasn’t uncommon, as they could only afford one computer, but it couldn’t be more inconvenient.

He made a split-second decision. Spider-Man always got to save the day. It was time Peter Parker got a turn.

Twenty minutes passed. No Peter. May wasn't worried. He’s often late.

Twenty-five minutes. She shot him a text. No response.

Thirty minutes now. Peter was never on time for anything, she reminded herself. Still, something felt wrong.

After forty-five minutes, she called him. May had never been so worried after hearing someone’s voicemail.

At one hour without Peter, she remembered when Peter showed her the “Find My Phone” thing so she could see where he was. That reassured her for about two minutes, until she saw the words “Location services are off for this person. Ask them to turn them on in Settings.”

Peter was never this late. Not without letting her know. Well, except for that one time. But who didn’t know the way home from their favorite hot dog stand?!

She told herself to calm down. Call him one more time. So she did. And he didn’t pick up. 

A minute later, just as she was getting ready to get up and walk around New York to search for him, her phone lit up with his name. 

Her heart bursting with relief, she answered immediately. “Peter? Are you ok? Where have you been? What are—”

She was interrupted by an adult male voice that was definitely not Peter’s. “Who is this?”

May thought this was quite audacious of him, as he was the one with someone else’s phone. “Who is _this_? What are you doing with my nephew’s phone?”

“This is Officer Jefferson Davis. Are you his legal guardian?” 

“I- yes, why? Where is he?”

“I found your nephew’s phone at a crime scene. I—”

“What kind of crime scene? Is Peter okay?” May almost missed the answer because the blood rushing in her ears coupled with her heavy breathing was trying its best to drown out any other noise.

“Your nephew was involved in a mugging. He was shot once in the stomach. He is currently at Mount Sinai Emergency Room.”

Peter was laying in the gutter, dying, precisely what he’d told May he wasn’t doing. He was vaguely aware of people arguing over him, someone crying, and someone making weird gurgling noises. The last one might’ve been him, but he couldn’t be sure.

He probably blacked out because the next thing he knew, he was in an ambulance and two worried faces swam above him.

“....hear me, kid? Can you tell me your name?” 

Peter coughed and pulled off his oxygen mask. “Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis the Third,” he managed to choke out. He just registered the confusion on one medic's face and the slight amusement on the other's before blacking out a second time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> barbeque sauce on rice with butter is actually the best. Try it. And i have no clue how the police would actually handle the phone situation so I just kinda did whatever i felt was natural.  
> also i threw in a couple references. ten points to the first person who can comment what peter's name he tells the paramedics is from. five points to the first person who can spot and comment my miles morales reference because that one's a little easier.


	2. dreams don't satisfy reality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you were wondering, no, i don't know what i'm doing, and yes, i'm supposed to be doing homework. anyway here's the second chapter

_ Bright light flooded Peter’s vision. He opened his eyes to reveal that he was standing in his bedroom; the one he had before Ben died and they moved. It was exactly the same in all ways but one: everything, his bed, his toys, his posters on the wall, everything was pure white. _

_ Peter looked down slowly. He was wearing the clothes he’d had on, but they, too, were bleached white, and when he lifted his shirt and gently prodded his stomach, there was no gunshot wound. Slowly, he looked back up, and there was a man sitting on his bed who hadn’t been there before. _

_ “Ben?” He asked tentatively. _

_ “Hi, Pete,” Ben smiled, and opened his arms. Peter ran into them without a second thought, burying his face in his uncle’s shoulder. Tears fell off his cheeks freely, disappearing once they reached Ben’s white shirt. _

_ “Ben, I missed you so much,” he sobbed. Ben’s embrace was exactly like he remembered, warm, strong, and it felt like he could stay there forever. He knew this couldn’t be real, but he didn’t care, because his wish had been granted. _

_ “I missed you too, Peter. I missed you too.” He broke the embrace and held Peter at arm’s length, a sad look forming on his face. Peter looked up at his uncle and a horrible thought came to fruition in his mind. _

_ “Ben… am I dead?” The thought terrified him- not just because he was afraid of death, but because he was afraid of what would happen to everything he left behind. May had already lost so much; Peter was all she had left. She was strong, he knew that- but he hated to think what would happen if everything was suddenly taken away from her. _

_ “I don’t know, Pete. But I know you can’t stay here.” Peter furrowed his brows and he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his stomach. He looked down to see a red spot growing on his white shirt. _

_ A tear fell from Ben’s cheek. “I am so proud of you. I always will be.” He placed his hands on Peter’s chest, and pushed. _

_ “Wait!” Peter yelled, but it was too late. He was falling through the floor, Ben looking sadly down at him. _

“Clear!” 

Electricity pulsed through Peter's body when he crash-landed back to Earth, his back arching, Ben's last sad look at him burned into his eyelids. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, though he wasn't sure if it was because of the pain of his wound or the pain of losing Ben all over again.

Peter’s hand was limp as May stroked it. He was about to go into surgery, but they’d let her have a few minutes with him beforehand. She stared into his sleeping face and thought about what the doctor had said to her a few minutes before.

The X-ray had provided some shocking and confusing news: there were three bullets in Peter’s body. One in his stomach (she knew about that one), one in his left buttocks, and one in his right thigh (those last two were news to her). Somehow, in his short life, Peter had managed to get three different bullets stuck in his body. The strangest part was, however, there were no scars, no marks, no indication that the bullets had ever entered his body.

May ran her fingers through his hair. The doctors had asked her about the bullets. How did they get there? Why hadn’t he gone to the hospital for either of them? What was a teenage boy doing that he’d gotten shot three times?

She wished she had the answers.

Whatever Peter had been hiding, whatever he’d been doing, it had led to him getting hurt, multiple times, and she hadn’t known about it. How bad of an aunt was she that her nephew got hurt so often without her knowledge? And how in the world had he hidden two gunshot wounds from her?

Her mind swirled with so many questions she couldn’t think straight, and the more she stared at her nephew, unconscious in his hospital bed, the more she realized that she didn’t know him at all.

“Tony, take a look at this.”

Tony looked to Pepper. On her tablet, there was a video of the news paused. When he turned to look, she played it. 

“A jewelry store’s security camera captured a brave act earlier tonight when a young man saved a couple getting mugged by a trio of men. The teen jumped in to save the day, knocking out one of the men, but ultimately getting shot in the stomach by another. The other two men fled, leaving behind their companion, whose identity has yet to be revealed. Let’s take a look at the footage. Viewer discretion is advised.”

The footage entailed exactly what the news anchor had said, a teenager saving a young couple from some muggers. Tony nodded and looked back to his project.

“Brave kid, Pep, but what does that have to do with me?”

“Well, I had FRIDAY look him up, and he’s pretty impressive. He’s 15, goes to Midtown Tech-”

Tony whistled. “So he’s smart?”

“Very. But he’s there on scholarship. Lives with his aunt, who works multiple jobs, none of them very high paying. It doesn’t seem like they have a lot of money, so maybe we could pay his medical bills, maybe even school. I mean, he nearly gave his life for complete strangers, it’s the least we could do.”

“Mhm. And what is this kid’s name?”

Pepper swiped back to a screen with what looked like a high school yearbook picture. “Um, it was… Peter Parker.”

Tony turned back around so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. “What?”

“Peter Parker. Why, do you know him or something?”

“FRIDAY, is he the same Peter Parker I asked you about a while ago?”

“I believe it is, boss.”

Tony dropped his own tablet and started towards the door. “FRIDAY, find out where he’s being treated and tell Happy to get ready to drive me there. We need to find this kid as soon as possible.”

The door swung shut, leaving a shocked Pepper behind, holding her tablet. She threw her hands in the air. 

“FRIDAY, who in the world is Peter Parker?”

“He’s fifteen, attends Midtown School of Science and Technology, he-”

“I knew that already, but why is Tony so interested in him?”

“I believe that is because Peter Parker leads a double life. It’s his second identity that interests Boss. You may have heard of him. He calls himself Spider-Man.”

May decided that nobody she loved would ever be in a hospital bed ever again.

She came to that decision while sitting next to Peter’s bed post-op. It was unclear how she would enforce that, but she was determined to, no matter what. If it took wrapping Peter in bubble wrap and sticking him in a basement for the rest of his life, so be it. Nothing would hurt him ever again.

She sighed and leaned on Peter’s bed. His hands were ice cold and she massaged his palms in an effort to get the blood flowing through them. Never in her life would she have thought she’d be in this position. Then again, she never thought she’d be a widow raising her nephew, but here she was. She remembered something Ben had said, years ago.

_ “Life happens, May. Bad things happen. You can’t stop it. Resisting it only makes things worse. The only thing you can change is your reaction to it.” _

Peter took a deep breath, making May perk up, but he continued slumbering. She released another sigh and realized Ben was right. Bad things were always going to happen, and she couldn’t stop them with any amount of bubble wrap.

“Mrs. Parker?”

The voice snapped May out of her thoughts. She hadn’t even noticed the young doctor enter the room. She stood and shook her hand.

“Is everything okay, doctor?” 

“Well, the bullet your nephew was shot with was coated with some sort of substance that is most likely poison. We have sent the bullet to the police and they will try to use it to identify who shot him and what poison was used.”

“Poison?” May whispered. “Is Peter going to be okay?”

“I can’t tell you for sure right now, but what I can say is that he seems to be faring well considering the circumstances. Once we know what poison it is, we will be able to treat him better, but for now, all we can do is keep a close eye on him.”

“Thank- thank you, doctor,” May stammered, her eyes fixed on Peter.

“Of course, Mrs. Parker. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask. Oh, and here- this is the contact information for the detectives assigned to your nephew’s case. They will want to talk to you and Peter, once he wakes up.”

She handed May two business cards that she took numbly, still trying to process the new information.

The doctor left May standing there in shock. After a minute she made her way back to Peter’s bedside and took his hand again.

“Oh, Peter,” she murmured. “What did you get yourself into?”

It was supposed to be a rhetorical question, but once again a voice surprised her from the doorway.

“I think I might be able to help you answer that.”

She flinched and looked up at the man entering Peter’s room. He wore sunglasses despite the fact that they were inside, and looked strangely familiar, though May’s muddled brain couldn’t get a pin on who he was.

“And you are?” She asked, maybe a little rudely, but she didn’t particularly care.

He pulled up a chair on the opposite side of Peter’s bed. “My name is Tony. And your nephew needs my help.”

Peter woke with a start.

Tubes attached to his arms pulled him back down when he tried to sit up, so naturally, he ripped them out. Bad idea. It hurt.  Bright lights flooded his eyes, and for a second, he thought he was back with Ben, but when his vision cleared, there was May and Ned standing next to his bed. 

“Woah, woah, hey Peter, you’re okay,” May said with the biggest smile he’d ever seen on her. It was this that calmed him down enough to let her push him gently back down onto his pillow.

“You’re more than okay, dude! You’re in the Avengers tower!” Ned grinned. “Tony Stark  _ saved _ you, man!”

Peter looked at May, then Ned, then back at May. He had no clue what was going on and their words sounded like someone had stuffed cotton in his ears.

“Hey, Peter, can you say something, hon? Talk to me,” May said, concern creeping into her smile.

_ Talk… _

“Warovvish,” he said. The relief and happiness melted off Ned and May’s face and turned to full-on fear. His vision was slowly going back to black. He barely saw May tell Ned something he couldn't hear, Ned running out of the room faster than Peter thought possible, and returning with an Asian woman in a white coat following close behind him. Her expression matched May and Ned's.

"Warovvish," he insisted, then- and he seemed to be doing this a lot lately, but he really couldn’t control it- he passed out again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed! yes there will be more, though i doubt anyone was seriously wondering lol. and this one is quite a bit harder than last chapter but if you can tell me what peter's last word before he passed out is from you get a cookie


End file.
